


Bitterness

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Dark Shadows (1966), Dark Shadows (1991)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:55:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27389827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Sam Evans remembers a time before Sam Evans, when he was Charles Delaware Tate.
Relationships: Charles Delaware Tate/Count Petofi, Count Petofi/Quentin Collins, Quentin Collins/Charles Delaware Tate
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Bitterness

**Author's Note:**

> This is another story in my own Dark Shadows-fusion world with elements of the original series, Renewal, the Innovation comic, and my own interpretation of the characters. In this version, Sam Evans, Charles Tate, and Peter Bradford are all the same person, but this particular story deals with his time as Sam Evans and Peter Bradford. I don’t own Dark Shadows but it tends to take over my imagination from time to time.

If Sam Evans closed his eyes, he’d remember a time before he was Sam Evans; this broken, aging wreck of a painter, forced to rely on his daughter to survive. He’d remember Charles Delaware Tate, cherished darling of salons, sought out by beautiful women and men along with those not so beautiful, yearing for a portrait that would capture their inner magic, show that there was magic lying within them. Never daring to believe there was actual magic involved or the hand of his patron looming over the adoring art afficiadoes.

Only one young man had refused, arrogant in his beauty and rebelliousness against the cultivated crowds Charles moved amidst. Only one had turned against him. 

“You’re selfish, Charles. You look at all these people’s faces, but you only see yourself, an aspect you recognized and chose to draw out. No wonder you belong to Petofi. He seeks narcissists like you, preys upon your vanity and fraility. You bask in his patronage, never seeing the hollow shells of his other victims. Not until it’s too late.”

“You should talk, Quentin,” the man who’d been Charles Delaware Tate muttered at the memory. “You were the most selfish of the lot. No wonder you were our masterpiece, Petofi’s and mine. More his than mine in the end. Together you took everything from me.”

No, he would not let himself be haunted by Quentin Collins. Or at least he tried to tell himself he wouldn’t be. 

Sam Evans wasn’t capable of much of anything. He was lucky to have a capable and clever daughter. 

How long would it be before Count Petofi resurrected himself from whatever death inconvenienced him? How long before Quentin showed up with a new name and the same smirk? Both seemed drawn to Collinwood and the Collins family, if not other souls drawn there. 

How long before they decided to take Maggie like they’d taken everything else? 

Sam took another drink. It tasted bitter, like everything else. 

Perhaps bitterness was he deserved.


End file.
